


Love and Orange-Beaked Monsters

by Scytale



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff and Crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 09:09:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20945867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scytale/pseuds/Scytale
Summary: Eros falls in love with Psyche because of a goose.





	Love and Orange-Beaked Monsters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/gifts).

Contrary to what the poets would later say, Eros didn't fall in love with Psyche because of her beauty. Not her innocence in slumber, either — if the gods were so easily moved, then half of human history wouldn't have happened.

He fell in love with her because of the goose.

He was studying Psyche, wondering what manner of monster he should have her fall in love with, when the goose snuck up on him and pecked him in the leg.

"Ow!" he said. He looked down to see the goose look at him with black, malevolent beady eyes — and then that ceased to matter in comparison with the realization that his arrow had slipped and ichor was over his hand.

"Oh, shoot," he said. All those centuries of being careful, never running with his arrows, never touching the pointy ends — and he ended up ruined by an overgrown duck. 

He vanished in a burst of golden light, heading back to Olympus.

* * *

So the good news was, he wasn't in love with the goose. Leaving aside the unpleasant personality of this particular goose, the other gods would never let him live it down.

The bad news was, he was in love with Psyche. He'd been looking at her when he pricked himself, and now, he couldn’t stop thinking of her.

He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. Sometimes, he felt like he was on fire; other times, he wanted to jump out of his skin. He was beginning to understand why mortals and gods alike found love so difficult.

It was like having the flu, except you wanted to write poetry instead of puking. Not that Eros really knew what the flu felt like, since gods didn’t get sick.

"You’re looking a little pale," Aphrodite said to him when she visited.

Eros flinched. "Am I?" he asked.

"Definitely," Aphrodite said. "And you're moping all the time. It doesn't look good on you." She shook her head disapprovingly. "Anyway, I came to ask about Psyche. She still hasn’t fallen in love and married a monster yet, and it’s been days. Did you even prick her with an arrow?"

"I did," Eros lied. Though a part of him wanted to protest that he didn’t want to do what Aphrodite told him to. The thought of making poor, beautiful Psyche fall in love with a monster made him feel sick, and anyway, if she married a monster, she couldn’t marry him — 

Where had that thought come from? Gods didn't marry mortals. But as he thought about it, he became more and more convinced that he _ had _to marry Psyche. That was concerning, because it went right against his mother's plans. And his mother's rage when thwarted (or even a little vexed) was legendary.

But...maybe there was some way for them both to get what they want. His mother wanted Psyche to make a terrible marriage; he wanted Psyche to be his wife.

"Don't worry, Mother. I did exactly what you asked. It just takes some time to transport a truly terrible monster across Greece, you know. They don’t really have good monsters around her city — and I didn’t want her to fall in love with just any monster, after all. She deserves the best. By which I mean, the worst."

"Oh," Aphrodite said. She kissed him on the cheek. "That’s such good thinking. I knew I could rely on you."

* * *

After his mother's visit, Eros flew over to Apollo's house. Once Apollo stopped laughing, he agreed to Eros's plan.

His oracle delivered the message to Psyche's family: Psyche was fated to wed a horrible dragon. The entire family wept and clung to each other as the oracle described her terrible fate.

Eros, eavesdropping invisibly, thought that the description was rather too much. Sure, he needed the family (and by proxy, his mother) to know what a terrible fate lay in store for Psyche, but the family was looking traumatized as soon as the oracle made his pronouncement. There was no need for the oracle to spend almost an hour describing just how cruel, spiteful, and ugly the bridegroom was. No need to go into some of the thornier anatomical details.

He was going to make Apollo fall in love with a_ tree _for this. A real tree, this time, not just a girl who became a tree.

Still, it worked out, more or less — Psyche made it to the golden palace he prepared, her family lamented her presumed death, and Aphrodite gave him a hug for being the best son a goddess could ever have.

When night fell, Eros slipped away from Olympus into the pitch-black halls of his palace — and then, to his bedchamber, where Psyche waited.

The darkness was no impediment to him. He saw her clearly, sitting on the bed — their marriage bed, he thought, a thrill running through him. Suddenly, love didn't feel like the flu; it was more like that vertigo he felt the first time he'd flown. It had been unpleasant, at first, but then he'd looked down and the world had been small beneath him, and the sky had been bright and blue, and he had laughed and wondered why he had ever been so scared of falling.

Loving her would be like that, but better; a kiss from her would surely be worth more than a thousand flights. She didn't know him yet, and she looked overwhelmed, but he was sure he could charm her.

"Psyche — "

That was as much as he managed to say before a projectile launched at him from under the bed. Something jabbed at his legs. It was the goose again, looking at him with avian malevolence. 

It hissed at him, sounding more serpentine than bird. 

Eros stumbled back and fell. The goose charged forward, pecking at him with its beak and trying to beat him to death with feathery wings.

It was attacking him — a god! And on his wedding night, in front of his bride, who could hear all of this, if not see it!

With a bellow of rage (and not a little pain, since the bird's beak was sharp), Eros reached for the bird. He was going to wring its _ neck_. He was going to have roast goose for dinner. He was going to hang its image in the stars as a warning to all waterfowl that dared to attack a god — 

"Wait!" Psyche cried.

Eros froze.

Psyche got off the bed, reaching down for the bird in the darkness. She managed, with some effort, to get her arms around it; it thrashed a bit in her arms, but then it settled down (though not without a hiss at Eros).

"Bad bird!" she scolded it.

Eros stood up, wincing. The goose snapped its beak at him, and Psyche frowned. “Tyrbas, no!”

"It has a name?" Eros asked, aghast. "What is it doing here?"

"_He _has a name," Psyche said. "He’s my goose. He followed me to the mountain."

The goose glared at Eros. Eros glared back.

"Get rid of it," Eros said to Psyche. "It attacked me."

The goose gave a series of raucous honks. If honks could sound sneering, these did.

"Hush!" Psyche said. The goose quieted, though it jabbed its beak forward in a clear threat.

Psyche looked toward Eros. "I don’t want to get rid of Tyrbas. And he’s not an it, either. He’s my pet. He’s my friend. Fate had me to marry you and made my family abandoned me. Let me keep my pet, at least." Her voice cracked for a moment, but her expression was stubborn. "Your servants say you aren’t really a dragon and you built this palace to make me happy but — what would make me happy is my goose."

Eros stared at her, almost forgetting about the goose. He hadn’t thought about what it would be like for her, to be separate from her family. He hadn’t really thought much of her feelings after all. And now, he was thinking of it, and thinking of how scared and hurt and bitter she must feel, and that made him feel scared and hurt and bitter too — and for once, he didn’t want anyone to fall into embarrassing love as a result.

He didn’t even want to make her fall in love with him. He just wanted to make her feel better.

"I’m sorry," he said. "Of course you can keep the goose." He hesitated. "If you could go back to your family, would you?"

She frowned. "I thought I was fated to wed you," she said.

Eros hesitated. If that was what it took to make her feel better — 

"It might have been more of a guideline," he said miserably.

His heart hurt. At least he would never have to see the goose again — but that was no consolation at all, because it just made him jealous of the goose. Actually, he was already jealous of the goose — she was _ holding _ him.

But she didn't leave; she just shook her head. He stared at her, unsure if he could trust his hope. 

"No," Psyche said. "I'll have to marry someday — though apparently no one wants to marry me." Eros opened his mouth to protest, but she went on before he could speak.

"I _ do _ want to get married and have my own house." She hesitated. "And you may be a mystery or a monster, but you are letting me keep Tyrbas. If my sisters' husbands are any indication, most husbands won't."

"Of course you can keep Tyrbas," Eros said exultantly. "You can keep a thousand geese!" The vision of a thousand geese out for his blood crossed his mind. Maybe that was a little too much.

"We can discuss it, anyway," he amended. "But for now… can we not have your goose in the bedchamber? I'd like to get to know you without getting pecked again."

She made a sound — maybe an exhalation, maybe a laugh. "All right," she said. Then, tentatively, she said, "I'd like to get to know you too."

Eros's heart leapt.

* * *

Since she couldn't see in the dark, he had to help guide her to the hall, all the while staying out of the way of the goose's beak. The goose was canny enough to sense their intentions; it squirmed, trying to wriggle free from Psyche, but she managed to keep a hold of it.

As soon as she set the goose down into the hall, it tried to make a dash for Eros and the room, but Eros managed to close the door on the waterfowl with a smug sense of triumph. 

Then, he and Psyche were alone, apart from the raucous honking of an angry goose outside. He kissed her, and she sighed, kissing him back, and he was right — it was better than flying. Not even the sound of the goose alternating between pecking at the door and honking could ruin it.

Her hands wrapped around him — or tried to. She froze as her hands brushed against his wings. "You have wings," she said. She sounded wondering — but then, she had thought she was marrying a dragon.

"What are you?" she asked. When he didn't answer, she said firmly, "I want to see what you look like."

"I might frighten you," he said.

She laughed. "You got attacked by a goose. You can’t frighten me."

She... had a point. Maybe. It had not been his most godly moment. And anyway, he didn’t like the idea of the only face she ever saw being the orange-beaked face of his avian nemesis.

"Not now. I don't want to get pecked again tonight." he said, kissing her again. She ran her hands along his wings, and he shivered. "But tomorrow I’ll bring a lamp."

Outside their door, the goose honked.

  
  



End file.
